Locking down your home Wi-Fi network with a password is like making sure you eat your broccoli. It's probably good for you, but you probably think it's not much of a priority or a big deal. Well, it's time to make an attitude adjustment. It turns out that you can cause yourself a good deal of trouble by leaving that door to your system unlocked.
Don't believe me? Just listen to the story of a homeowner in Buffalo, N.Y., who endured an ugly encounter with a weapons-waving coterie of law-enforcement agents who swarmed into his house in February and accused him of downloading a huge trove of child pornography, a federal crime.

As you might have guessed, the man (his name has not been released) was guilty of nothing more than failing to secure his Wi-Fi network. After an extensive grilling and the seizure of his family's computers and smart phones, the real culprit emerged. It was a 25-year-old neighbor who had secretly latched on to the innocent man's wireless network and used it to download thousands of images, according to an Associated Press story that's been making the rounds. The same story recounts similar incidents in North Syracuse, N.Y. and Sarasota, Fla.